We’ve long known laptops can cause male infertility when used right where the name suggests – i.e. right on your lap. That’s long before they started exploding left and right – simply by heating up the family jewels they can drastically reduce a man’s ability to reproduce. (Hm…is that why manufacturers switched to calling them notebooks?)
Now we find out extensive cellphone usage results in the same:
“Those who made calls on a mobile phone for more than four hours a day had the worst sperm counts and the poorest quality sperm, according to results released yest at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual meeting in New Orleans.”
The mechanism of the damage is not yet known:
“Doctors believe the damage could be caused by the electromagnetic radiation emitted by handsets or the heat they generate.”
Heat? Give me a break! I don’t know about you, but I either hold it to my ears or use a headset, but it’s never … you know .. down there. 
Anyway, true geeks have their laptops and cellphones permanently glued to them – if they become infertile, are geeks becoming an endangered species?
Update (10/30): Read the ZDNet story by David Berlind.
Update (1/4/08): Wow, I can’t believe this: Yossi Vardi uses my post in his TED presentation. 🙂 (It’s a 2 minutes 13 seconds)
Tags: endangered species, geeks, laptops, mobile phones, fertility, infertility, male fertility, scrotal temperature, sperm count
This is a classic case of confusing correlation and causality. Clearly the problem is that the kind of fellow who is likely to use his cell phone a lot is a puny girlie man with substandard virility.
Not sure what it means that I have a 1000+ minute plan though….
Don’t worry, Chris, after 2 kids the 1000+ minute plan can come quite handy :-))
Does the Bluetooth implant I’ve seen some people wandering around with solve the problem? (while giving you a sore head from all the slapping of said appliance but then that’s her excuse isn’t it?)
I don’t know, but I doubt it.. without the headset you’d be holding the phone against your ears. With the headset it may be on your belt or in your pocket… closer to the “target zone” this article talks about.
i think you mean, can cause male INfertility!
Oops, you’re right, thanks for catching it. Fixed.
🙂
“Heat? Give me a break! I don’t know about you, but I either hold it to my ears or use a headset, but it’s never … you know .. down there.”
Never in your pockets, you know, down there, when on standby?
Don't have to be a geek to be able using a cellphone or laptop, anyone can use them. It's just a matter HOW would you use it, rather than WHO would use it.